The Recovery Assignment

by Alison Roberts

  Why hadn’t Katrina seen the truck? The obvious answer was that Steve had miscalculated the time he would need for his turn or that he had not seen the car, but Charlotte wasn’t content to leave it.

  ‘Has Katrina’s cellphone been returned to her mother?’

  ‘Not that I know of. But I checked it. There were no recent calls at the time of the accident so she wasn’t speaking to anyone. No missed calls either, so she wasn’t trying to pick it up off the floor or anything.’

  ‘I’d like to take a look at it.’

  ‘Why?’ Hawk’s tone challenged her to accuse him of missing something and Charlotte sighed. It was about time they stopped watching how each other did their jobs, looking for something to criticise or feel offended about. She wasn’t trying to catch him out here or prove anything. She just wanted to solve the case to her own satisfaction.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she confessed. ‘I just have the feeling we might be missing something.’

  ‘Feminine intuition?’ Hawk snorted softly and Charlotte gave him a somewhat scathing glance. She decided against sharing the odd comment Katrina’s mother had made to her when she’d left the funeral home.

  ‘I thought we’d sorted your prejudice at having a female colleague.’

  Hawk cleared his throat. ‘My apologies,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘I just don’t appreciate having my accuracy or efficiency questioned.’

  ‘I’m not questioning it,’ Charlotte said sincerely. ‘I’m quite aware of how well you do your job, Hawk. In fact, I’d have to say I’m pretty impressed.’ There. Maybe that would make him think twice about looking over her shoulder from now on. ‘I just want to double-check everything. For my own peace of mind.’

  ‘It’ll be a waste of time.’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll make sure it’s my time.’

  ‘Stubborn, aren’t you?’ Hawk stared at her. Then he shook his head as though conceding defeat and gave one of his rare smiles. Charlotte found herself grinning instantly in response.

  ‘Sure am. I would prefer to think of it as being tenacious, though.’

  Hawk was still smiling. ‘I’m sure you would.’

  Charlotte found herself remembering that smile as she signed in for the collection of evidence still being held in secure storage. Funny how she could remember every occasion Hawk had smiled at her in the last few weeks. Or maybe it wasn’t. The fierce lines of that uncompromising face were transformed by a smile. It was like having a glimpse of a completely different person and it was rare enough to make it memorable.

  Why didn’t Hawk smile at her very often? she wondered. She had seen him look amused and even laugh aloud when he was with his mates in the cafeteria. Was he keeping a barrier up to make sure they didn’t allow friendship to creep into their working relationship? Perhaps he just didn’t like her. Or maybe he was still hoping her company was only a temporary inconvenience until the wonderful Cam returned. It might complicate things if Hawk accepted how well they could work together or even, heaven forbid, started enjoying her company.

  Charlotte took the cellphone back to their office. It was lunchtime and Hawk had disappeared, which was just as well. She pushed the menu buttons on the small silver phone and checked the listed calls. The last incoming call had been two hours before the crash. The final outgoing call had been late the previous evening. What had Mrs Jones meant when she’d said she blamed him?

  ‘He was married, you know. He should have known better.’

  The comfort being offered by relatives had made it inappropriate to ask what she meant and Charlotte had no intention of visiting Eileen Jones again now. That would be an intrusion and it would be getting too personally involved for her own comfort. But Katrina’s mother hadn’t been referring to Steve Poulsen, Charlotte was sure of that. There was someone else involved. Someone significant. She toyed with the phone, pushing the menu button again.

  The whole case had grown in significance. Charlotte wanted to clear Steve, and now that she’d stuck her neck out she had to. Hawk might scoff at her instinct but Charlotte had learned to trust it. If she could prove herself right, it would go a long way to proving to Hawk that she could measure up as a partner. That she could provide an element to this partnership that Cam had never supplied.

  She was sick of being compared to Cam. Cam kept his files here. He did his scale plans on that paper. He kept his desk tidy enough to find things quickly and he never cluttered his work space with unnecessary items like medical textbooks or…or hand cream! Charlotte deliberately added to the clutter with personal items like the jar of quirky pens with fake flowers on the ends that now sat between Jamie’s photo and the pump bottle of hand lotion.

  Cam wouldn’t have wasted his lunch-break playing with a cellphone either, but any thoughts of her absent competition faded as excitement suddenly pushed away any resentment. Charlotte pushed the buttons rapidly, reading the text messages, both received and sent. One had come in about half an hour before the accident time of 2:45 p.m.

  I’ve told her

  And the sent message was: How did she take it?

  Not good

  R U OK?

  No

  Want 2 meet?

  Yes. Usual place?

  B there in 10

  The final message had been received at 2:44 p.m. Need u babe. Where R U?

  And the final outgoing message had never been completed.

  Almost th—

  Charlotte took the paper coming out of the printer as Hawk arrived back in the office.

  ‘Read this,’ she commanded, handing over the transcript she had made of the messages. ‘Text messages from Katrina Jones’s cellphone.’

  She had listed the times beside the lines of text. Hawk read silently. Then he looked at Charlotte, his expression one of grim comprehension.

  ‘She was texting. That’s why she didn’t see the truck.’

  ‘She probably only looked up long enough to negotiate the bend.’

  ‘On her way to meet an upset lover who’d probably just told his wife he was leaving her.’

  They looked at each other in silence for a moment. The owner of the mobile phone Katrina had been texting to would need to be interviewed. The victim impact statements already prepared for the court hearing would have to be revised. They would make compelling reading and it was almost certain that Steve Poulsen would be cleared of any blame or repercussions other than the psychological effects he was suffering. Charlotte had been right and she had picked up something that Hawk had missed or simply not thought of. She wasn’t about to score points here, though. This was supposed to be a partnership, wasn’t it?

  ‘Do you want to call Steve and let him know we’ve found something that might put him in the clear?’ she asked Hawk.

  The gaze Charlotte was receiving changed. A subtle addition emerged that might have been appreciation or even an acknowledgement that a truce was being called.

  ‘No, you do it,’ Hawk said. ‘You’re good with people.’

  Making the call that offered light at the end of a very dark tunnel for Steve Poulsen made Charlotte feel good.

  But something else was making her feel even better.

  ‘I think this might actually work out,’ she told Laura that night. ‘We could make a real team.’

  ‘He obviously needs you around to make sure the job’s done properly,’ Laura said. ‘Fancy missing something like that. I’d rub his nose in it if I were you.’

  Charlotte just smiled. She didn’t need to. Hawk might appear aloof and intimidating but he was aware of every nuance, however subtle, in what happened around him. He was quite capable of sensitivity. Who wouldn’t be, with that degree of intelligence? He just didn’t choose to show it frequently. But he had shown her…just a tiny amount and it was enough to change how she felt about her new position.

  ‘I think I’ve earned some respect finally. Maybe he’ll stop comparing me to Cam now.’

  ‘If he thinks you use feminine intuition to solve a case, I have my d
oubts. What does he think it is? Some form of witchcraft?’

  Charlotte grinned. ‘Maybe it is.’ Her grin faded. ‘No. We’re definitely making progress.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Laura gave her friend a rather curious glance but Charlotte didn’t feel like discussing her job or Owen Hawkins any more right now. It was good and Charlotte was content to simply enjoy the new space rather than try to analyse it into extinction.

  Yes. Charlotte felt good.

  Better than she had felt in a long, long time.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE good feeling continued. It even grew.

  Steve Poulsen’s lawyer was delighted with the new evidence of the text messaging.

  ‘There’s no way he’ll be convicted. His driving record is exemplary. The firm that employs him was reluctant to suspend him in the first place. He’s the most hard-working and reliable driver they’ve got.’

  Jane Poulsen rang a day or two later to thank Charlotte. ‘The company’s taken Steve back on. He’s not allowed on the road until the court case is over but they’ve found him work at the depot.’

  ‘How’s he feeling now?’

  ‘He’s still devastated but I think he’s starting to believe in himself again. He’d got to the point where he was convinced it was all his fault. But I knew it wasn’t. I kept telling him. So did Ben.’

  Charlotte turned to Hawk when she’d finished the call. ‘It probably wouldn’t carry any weight in court but I never thought to try and take a statement from Steve’s little boy.’

  ‘He’s only four. He’d say whatever he thought his dad wanted him to say.’

  ‘But I could have asked him at the scene. He was in the passenger seat. A far better place to spot an oncoming car than a driver making a right-hand turn.’

  ‘He might not have been looking at the road.’

  ‘But he was. Apparently they’d been playing a game to see who could guess the colour of the next car they saw. Ben was watching for a red one.’

  ‘Katrina’s car was red.’

  ‘Exactly! He would have won the game so he would have said something if he’d seen it. Shouted it with great excitement if he’s anything like most four-year-olds I know.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I stay well clear of kids if at all possible.’

  ‘Do you?’ That figured. Another difference to Jamie to chalk up. Jamie had adored children and couldn’t wait to have some of his own. Six, preferably.

  ‘Yes.’ The curt tone made Charlotte blink and Hawk had the grace to look slightly apologetic. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you.’

  ‘Take what out?’ The hint of apology had been mixed with something else. Charlotte didn’t believe Hawk hated children. She was beginning to see through what had appeared to be impenetrable personal barriers a few weeks ago.

  ‘My reaction to this email from Cam.’ Hawk was glaring at his computer screen now. ‘Seems like Cassie’s got herself pregnant. There’s no way he’ll escape having to marry her now.’

  Charlotte could feel sympathy for Hawk. He was missing his best mate after all. She couldn’t help a tiny glow of something like excitement, however. This made it less likely that Cam would be returning to claim his position.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t want to escape.’

  Hawk grunted. Or maybe it was a derisive snort. Whatever it was, it signalled an end to the conversation and they both worked in silence for a while. Hawk was doing a complicated forensic map of a crime scene that had happened before Charlotte had begun working with him and she was writing up the report on a fatal bus versus pedestrian incident she had attended alone two days ago.

  The interruption of Hawk speaking again was a surprise. ‘I wonder what Mrs Jones is going to think when the evidence of that text messaging comes out in court.’

  Charlotte was silent for a moment. The court case was coming up in a couple of weeks. The fact that Katrina had been distracted and not watching the road had been revealed but not the content of the messages.

  ‘I think she knew about the affair her daughter was having. She made a comment at the funeral but it didn’t make sense until I’d read the messages.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That he should have known better. That he was married. I thought at the time that it was an odd thing to say about Steve.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything to me.’ Hawk sounded put out.

  ‘No.’ Charlotte couldn’t suppress the tiny curl of her lips. ‘I was running on feminine intuition at the time.’

  Surprisingly, Hawk let the small snipe pass. He swivelled his chair so that he was facing Charlotte more directly. ‘If you’d had one of those zapper things—a defibrillator—could you have saved Mr Jones?’

  ‘We call them “toasters” in the trade.’ Charlotte smiled but then became serious. ‘It’s impossible to know, Hawk. We would have known exactly what we were dealing with if we could have seen the rhythm, though. If it had been a VF arrest and we’d shocked him early, it might have made a difference. Earlier drug therapy might have helped too but you can’t just administer cardiac drugs blindly.’

  ‘So why don’t you carry a “toaster”?’

  ‘You’ve seen how big a life pack that has a display screen is. You made enough fuss about finding room for my kit in the car.’

  Hawk didn’t even seem to notice this second snipe. ‘You can’t know how useful something is until you’re in a situation where you need it and it’s not available.’

  ‘It’s hardly likely to be something we’d need on a regular basis. A cardiac arrest following trauma is very unlikely to be treatable. We drive a squad car, not an ambulance.’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘And I hope we’re never going to have people that weren’t even involved in a crash falling over on us again.’

  ‘How many lives would you have to save to make it worthwhile carrying one?’ Hawk didn’t seem to want to let the matter drop.

  ‘Depends on the value you put on a life, I guess.’ Charlotte was not being facetious. ‘They cost tens of thousands of dollars, Hawk. Police administration would not see it as a cost-effective budget item even it you could prove it might save ten lives. A hundred even.’ Besides, she felt like adding, you’re not planning to work with me on anything more than a temporary basis. What would you and Cam do with a life pack after he comes back?

  ‘You’re probably right.’ The end to the conversation was abrupt as Hawk turned back to his computer, but Charlotte found it more difficult to concentrate on her report now. She was detailing circumstances, which included the fact that the bus driver’s shift had been due to finish in fifteen minutes and that he had been more than ordinarily tired because he’d been out with the boys the night before to watch a rugby match at the pub. Reaching for a notepad, Charlotte scribbled a note she would use when adding her conclusions and opinions to the end of the report. It seemed fairly obvious that the driver’s reaction times were bound to have been slower than normal and even if he hadn’t been travelling a little over the speed limit he might still have been unable to stop when someone had simply stepped out onto a pedestrian crossing. It didn’t excuse the driver, however, and Charlotte would be recommending that several charges be laid.

  She stole a glance over her shoulder as she finished the rapid notes and caught Hawk’s profile. He looked intent on his task but clearly he had found the mental energy to consider something irrelevant. How often did he think about Stan Jones? The case had been significant in more ways than one. Charlotte might need to revise her opinion that her professional relationship with Owen Hawkins had undergone a sea change when she’d earned respect by hunting down the new evidence in this case.

  Maybe the change had really occurred earlier, unnoticed due to the dramatic nature of the influence. The first measurable respect she had earned from Hawk had come during that resuscitation on Stan Jones, when she had been using every skill of her ‘other’ career—the skills Hawk had resented her bringing to her job as a crash investigator.

>   Hawk had been out of his depth then. Frightened, even. Charlotte had seen that flash of vulnerability and while it had made no difference at the time she had remembered it vividly later. She had welcomed the sense of power it had bestowed on her and it had, without doubt, heralded a change in the way they worked together. But had her softening towards Hawk come from embracing a feeling of superiority or had it been more that his vulnerability had made him seem more human somehow? Charlotte had depended on his assistance at the time and she had sympathised with his fear. Nobody could remain unaffected when another person was dying in front of them. He had risen to the challenge, too. Admirably, in fact.

  Yes. Charlotte turned back to her report with confidence that she could concentrate, having identified the elusive emotion that had been nagging somewhere in the back of her mind. The growing respect in the atmosphere wasn’t just one-sided. Owen Hawkins had attributes that went beyond his abilities as a crash investigator. Charlotte resolved to stop trying to find fault with Hawk. To stop comparing him to Jamie all the time and to stop—or at least try to stop—the conversational sniping they had both indulged in ever since she’d started this job.

  An already positive mood consolidated into something like inspiration. Charlotte would cease working independently, alongside rather than with Hawk. She had already proved she was capable of competing with the perfect ex-partner, hadn’t she? Maybe it was time to see what they could do as a team.

  Hawk noticed the difference on the next job they attended. It wasn’t a fatal crash but one of those involved was badly injured so it could become one. That meant that all relevant information still had to be gathered, which was a pain because the scene was a complicated one. Five roads entered this intersection and one of those roads was a favourite haunt for young people to test out their modified hot-rods on Friday nights. Both he and Charlotte were wandering around holding cans of spray paint.

  ‘There’s tyre marks for Africa, isn’t there?’ Charlotte groaned. ‘And I’ve found what look like gouge marks from more than one rollover.’